Speaking to a crowd so friendly it bordered on fawning, Clemens didn’t mention steroids, Brian McNamee, the Mitchell Report or any other controversy engulfing the ex-Yankees pitcher during a speech here to a convention of home-state high school baseball coaches.

Clemens insisted to organizers that the media be barred from the gathering, which was held under armed guard, but The Post obtained a seat near the front of the packed ballroom for his 11/2-hour talk to a standing-room-only turnout.

The only time Clemens came close to referring to the steroids furor was at the start, when he complained to an official from the Texas High School Baseball Coaches Association for allowing ESPN to buy video of his speech from the convention’s lone videographer.

“I had been promised rock-tight security,” said Clemens, who later called ESPN landing the video “a fiasco.”

Clemens has mostly avoided reporters since the release last month of the Mitchell Report, which used McNamee – his strength coach with the Yankees and Blue Jays – as its main source to accuse him of using steroids.

Clemens steadfastly denies those charges and earlier this week filed a defamation lawsuit against McNamee. Clemens also is expected to testify alongside McNamee before a House committee looking into steroids in baseball, although that appearance was postponed to Feb. 13. But all of those problems were adeptly sidestepped yesterday by the seven-time Cy Young winner, who basked in the adoration instead.

The crowd applauded him heartily at the start, ended his talk with a standing ovation, then mobbed him for autographs as he took a service elevator to avoid reporters.

“I’ve had a great time,” Clemens said as he departed.

Clemens, who arrived surrounded by guards while wearing an orange fleece bearing the logo of his alma mater, Texas, took off the pullover before launching into a detailed discussion of his workout regimen and pitching techniques, as well as a few war stories from his 24-year major league career. Clemens was scheduled to speak for only 45 minutes, but the reception was so warm he stretched it out another 45 minutes.

“Wait, I’m giving away all of my secrets,” Clemens said midway through, pointing at the video camera. “Oh, well – I’m not playing anymore, so what does it matter?”

It was a speech Clemens almost didn’t make. The coaches group, which is the largest in the country, invited him two years ago but briefly reconsidered when the 409-page Mitchell Report was released.

The association went ahead with invitation after deciding it had seen no concrete evidence Clemens used steroids, and several coaches surveyed after the speech said their group made the right decision.

“We were here to hear him talk about baseball, and I thought he did a good job of that,” said Shane Stewart, head coach at Roosevelt High in Lubbock. “I wasn’t interested in any of that steroids business, and neither was anybody else I talked to, either. I wanted to know about pitching and his workouts.”

Clemens, casually pacing the stage throughout and often using his hands for emphasis, rewarded the rapt audience by breaking down his workout, his pitching mechanics and his advice for young players.

Clemens joked at one point that he likes to run immediately after being pulled from a start but couldn’t do that with the Yankees because “you can’t really run anywhere in The Bronx.”

Clemens also stressed to the coaches not to let their young players focus solely on baseball or allow them to play only one position. He illustrated the latter by revealing the Astros recently promoted his son Koby in their minor-league system but only on the condition he move to catcher.

The coaches also enjoyed Clemens’ retelling of his famed 20-strikeout game against the Mariners in 1986. Clemens said he almost didn’t pitch because he arrived just 20 minutes before the game started, thanks to Boston’s notorious traffic. Clemens said the Red Sox pitching coach at the time, Bill Fisher, told him afterward: “You can get here whenever you want.”

Clemens answered more than a dozen questions from the crowd – all of them softballs – before noticing that some in the crowd were nodding off and dozens were streaming out the back.

“Well, I don’t want to bore these people anymore,” he said. Then, with gun-toting sheriff’s deputies at his side, he was gone.